L'Amour de Malade
by Nicole Sabatti
Summary: A short fic exploring the choices we make when we are alone with the dark...


**Disclaimer:** I don't own _Sailormoon_. In fact, the copyright is actually owned by Naoko Takeuchi and Toei Animation, and probably a few other companies as well. The important thing is, I don't own any of it, and I'm making no money whatsoever from this fan fiction. 

The song appearing throughout the fic is _Haunted_ by Evanescence. Yes, I have noticed that a lot of Evanescence songfics have been cropping up lately, but I figured it was either that or _Danger! High Voltage_ by Electric 6, and that's not something I want to consider :S

**Author's Notes:** This is probably one of the hardest things I have ever written, including that 2500 word essay where I researched the wrong topic. I envisioned a two-week project, on and off this has taken me roughy three months. Because this fic deals with some quite complex and difficult issues, it was essential to get the characterisation spot on. I only hope my hard work has paid off.

Just to let you know, this fic is rated PG-13 for implied violence and sexual themes. Now, on with the torture, I mean fic…

…dead. Even now, twenty minutes later, the air still rang with the sound of her final scream, her final, painful descent. He always imagined it would be worse than this, but it wasn't so bad. Apart from the fact that the voices had returned. His greatest fear. It didn't matter, he thought to himself hurriedly, he had coped with them before, what was to say he couldn't do it now? But this time it would be different, he knew that now, because this time he wouldn't have her.

Across the city, he heard the distant wail of a siren, but it was not for him. Not yet, anyway. Still, they were bound to notice him soon enough, for he had blood on his hands now, and he did not doubt that eventually they would sniff him out.

Blood. It was strange how everything began and ended with blood; the rich, crimson blood of the rising sun that had started it all, and now the stagnant blood of death. Her death. Her blood.

What was he supposed to do now? Was he supposed to run? Or wait for someone to find him? To find them. If only someone would tell him what to do! He had been good at following orders once, but eventually he had started to think on his own, had started making his own decisions, had started acting on his own intuition. He had thought he knew better. He was wrong.

He didn't seem to be able to think clearly, although this time it was not caused by drink. In his present situation, he did not know whether that was a comfort or a cause for concern. He hadn't drunk anything for days; he was beginning to think that perhaps she had weaned him off it. No doubt that would change.

He looked down at his hands. They were clean. Well, as clean as he could have hoped. He had expected them to be soiled in some way, perhaps with blood. Maybe that was a good sign. Then again…

_Long lost words whisper slowly to me_

_Still can't find what keeps me here_

_When all this time I've been so hollow inside_

_I know you're still there_

It had started with the dawn. Everything started with the dawn in some way or another; the dawn of time, the dawn of evolution, the dawning of a new era, but he was not interested in metaphors. All he cared about was his own history, his own destiny, and all that mattered was the fact that it had been the dawn that had led him to the events of the one hundred and twenty-first day. In a way, he supposed it had been his own dawning of a new era, his own evolution.

But before the dawn, there had been the night. Once, he had commanded a small portion of that shadowy world, but it was not the world that was so familiar to the ordinary citizens of Tokyo, the urban fantasies of the happy-go-lucky businessmen and the girls who sold their bodies for a few yen in dingy bars infused with the spicy scent of cheap ramen, where the putrid neon lights gave everything a sickly, luminescent glow.

No, his world had been a place where faceless shadows oozed behind streetlamps and the inviting glow of the hostess bars, a world where the darkness was a poison so thick and pure you could almost drink it. That was his world, but he had not been alone. Perhaps if he had been alone it would have been almost bearable, but for all his perks and privileges he had not owned the darkness. No-one could own the darkness, for it was hers and hers alone, and she was not willing to share.

He still heard her voice, somewhere, in the dimmest recesses of his mind, and in his nightmares. She took on many guises, and had many voices, but he remembered her best as Metallia, the Empress of the Dark Kingdom, and his former Mistress. Even here it seemed he could not escape her, and he was beginning to think that she was the one who had sent him there in the first place, perhaps as punishment for what he had done. He wouldn't put it past her; Metallia seemed to be quite fond of bearing grudges. Not to mention the fact that he had pledged his soul to her for eternity, and it was a bargain she intended to keep, regardless of whether he regretted the decision or not.

    _Don't forget, you have sworn loyalty to our Great Leader. You gave that body to me. Every time you are reborn, you will be one of my Four Warriors…_

Her dead voice rasped in his head, hollow and thin from her underworld prison. The dead could not speak, he had told himself in the early days, when things had been much easier. But then again, when had things ever been easy? Had he really been that naïve, to suppose that death would free him from her service? Perhaps this new…life had made him soft, the human flesh he wore filling his head with fantasies and lies. It was a folly of humanity to place too high a value on the finality of death, and Metallia was not exactly human. Then again, neither was he.

   _Every time you are reborn…_

Sometimes, he would listen to her endless ranting, her poisonous words of war and hatred, not because he wanted to, but because sometimes it was easier to submit than to try and block her out. Other times, he would drink himself into an alcoholic stupor, and although it did little to silence her, it let him forget for just a little while, and if he wanted he could pretend she never existed.

   _Every time…_

But it was futile to try and silence her permanently, for as long as Metallia was his Mistress, he was bound to serve her. Perhaps, he thought, during the times when the voices in his head were almost too much to bear, he ought to find himself a new mistress. He was only half joking.

Once, he had been Nephrite, warrior and lord of the Dark Kingdom. Sometimes, he had been Sanjuoin Masato, entrepreneur and socialite, and people had stopped to admire his good looks, his expensive clothes, and his fast car. He had once been a great man, in the eyes of the world and his peers alike, but what did he have to show for it? What was he now? It was all gone, the smart clothes, the huge mansion, the flashy car. H e had been left with nothing. He _ was_ nothing. Just like everybody else.

The dawn reminded him of that, for dawn was when the city awoke, and dawn was the excuse people needed to leave their cosy, centrally-heated nests for the jobs that brought them into the heart of Tokyo. He could do without people, for those that had once admired him now treated him with disdain, and looked at him with the same disgust they reserved for the vagrants that hung around in doorways, and the drunks that staggered in the gutters, stammering in gibberish and rolling their rheumy eyes around and around. To them, he was at the lowest level of citizen participation. To them, he was not even human, not even one of them. Then again, since when had he needed their approval? When had he needed their dawn?

The city shimmered in front of his eyes, masking the hazy sky and the crimson sun impaled on the needle-sharp pinnacle of the Tokyo Tower, bleeding red light and staining the wispy, morning clouds. Another nondescript day in a city that could have been anywhere. Another repeat performance of the day before, and the day before that, and the day before that, and the day before that. The same destitution, the same human squalor, the same sights, the same foul smells; he was beyond bored, he was comatose, and he didn't know how much more he could take.

Until, that is…

_Watching me, wanting me_

_I can feel you pull me down_

_Fearing you, loving you_

_I won't let you pull me down_

The first time he saw her she had been with a girl he recognised as Tsukino Usagi, or rather, as he remembered it later, Tsukino Usagi had been the one accompanying her. Perhaps it was ironic, then, that Tsukino Usagi had been the one he had noticed first, not that she was especially hard to pick out from the crowd; her trailing blonde hair was tied up in a style so unusual it immediately drew the attention of every passer-by, not to mention the fact that she seemed to possess an overtly loud voice, even for a teenage girl. Besides, there was something else about Tsukino Usagi, something he remembered had been important to him once…

But it was the other girl he remembered later, the young redhead with the bright green bow, and whilst she was nowhere near as stunning as her blonde companion, she had her own charm, even though at the time it was more than overshadowed by the other girl. Her name was Osaka Naru, and he had known her once, in his former life, although he had long since forgotten why she was so important. 

It was strange, the things about her that he remembered; the way she had mimicked his every footstep as they had danced beneath the hot lights of the Embassy Ball, the way she had responded to his persistent flirtations with a slight toss of her head and unspoken suggestions of her own, and the clever way she had masked them with the childish giggle that somehow seemed to hold her innocence in place. He remembered the way she had swooned and fawned and pandered over him, whilst he had led her on for the sole reason that it pleased his Mistress, and at the time, there had been very few things more important to him than earning Metallia's favour, and Osaka Naru's feelings had not been one of them. Then, something inside him had changed, although he did not know what, and he found his thoughts turning to her more often. Like now. 

He saw them again the next day, and the day after that, and the day after that, always at the same time, and always walking in the same direction. Away from him. But he could always change that, if he was careful, and stuck to the shadows, away from the prying eyes of the general public. And as time wore on, he grew even more clever, and even more cunning, and discovered even more ways to watch her, so that he was always, always there, even when she believed that she was completely alone. But of course, she was never really alone, not now he was watching her, following her, stalking her. Like a shadow. Now you see him, now you don't.

The building with the rusted, iron staircase and the green neon sign was one of his better finds. It was an old office block, abandoned to the best of his knowledge, and although he didn't know it, had been the self same building from which Zoisite had once watched him, plotting his downfall whilst he peered through Osaka Naru's bedclothes. But to him, that had been a long time ago, and it was a piece of trivia he was no longer interested in.

What mattered to him now was the fact that the building was the perfect vantage point, and gave him an uninterrupted view of everything that went on in the Azabu-Juban shopping district, and conveniently, although far from coincidently, the OSA*P jewellery store, and beyond that, the apartment Naru shared with her mother.

He could not watch her the way he had in the past, of course, for that would mean re-awakening the dark magic lying dormant within him, a door to which only Metallia had the key, and Metallia was no fool. The rooftop was cold, and littered with the carcasses of empty take-away cartons and the tattered vestiges of greasy old newspapers. The air was thick with the pungent stench of human excrement, and more than once he was forced to share his hideout with one or more of the filthier vagrants that scoured the city, wrapped in their lice infested blankets and muttering strings of profanity in their sleep.

But it was worth it, he told himself, even if he was able to catch nothing more than the briefest glimpse of her naked silhouette as she danced back and forth behind the curtain that censored his view, and everything he saw was blurred by the fuzzy light of the streetlamps that lined the deserted pavement. It was more than worth it.

He knew everything about her, and had soon learnt every single one of her routines by heart; he knew when she ate her dinner and when she sat down to tackle her homework, he knew when she took a shower, and when she was most likely to be find gossiping with her friends on the telephone, he knew at what time she went to bed, and when she got up in the morning. But there was also something else, something he had never expected, and something he could not explain. Whenever he thought of Naru, or whenever he watched her in her apartment, or trailed her across the city, Metallia was silent.

_Hunting you, I can smell you – alive_

_Your heart pounding in my head_

After he had been watching her for a month or so he had almost forgotten that Metallia even existed. If he heard her now it was as nothing more than a whisper in his dreams, or a faint sigh on the wind, and she was easily ignored. He had more important things to consider now. He had Naru.   

At about the same time, he also noticed that Tsukino Usagi was not the only person Naru walked home with. Sometimes, she was accompanied by other nondescript classmates whose names were unknown to him, teenage girls who giggled and gaped at their gawky male counterparts and waved magazine articles in each others' faces, or stopped to coo over clothing draped over lifeless mannequins trapped behind shop fronts of glassy chrome and gaudy neon signs. They were nothing to him, no more than non-entities; unimportant, but more significantly, unthreatening. He was not interested in them. 

But sometimes, when Naru was not with Tsukino Usagi, she walked home with a boy, a fairly unattractive youth with a shock of unruly brown hair and a pair of glasses too large for his face. The boy's name, he remembered, was Umino Gurio.

When Naru was with Umino Gurio, she would not linger as she did with her other friends, instead, she would walk with him to her apartment in the heart of the Juban shopping district, sometimes casting glances over her shoulder, as if she knew, somehow, that he was watching her. 

Upon reaching her apartment the ritual was always the same; she would invite Umino inside, he would glance nervously about him and ask if she was sure it was okay, and she would always reply with a quick nod of her head and a coy smile, telling him that her mother was downstairs, working in the shop. He did not know what they did once they were inside the apartment, the curtains were always closed.

He often wondered why Naru chose to spend so much with someone who was so physically unappealing, and whose conversational abilities seemed to stretch to nothing more adventurous than test scores and academic performance, but more than anything he wondered exactly why they spent so much time in her apartment with the curtains closed. One day, he found out.

He never saw Umino leave, he only knew Naru was alone when he saw her draw back the curtains from her window. Shortly after, her mother would turn off the lights in the shop downstairs, check the locks on the double glass doors and activate the metal grill that closed off the tiny jewellery store from the outside world until the following morning. Then, she would disappear from view before joining Naru in the apartment where they would eat dinner together in their tiny kitchen, bland conversation passing between them over plates of instant ramen and cheap cola. He was too far away to hear what they discussed at the dinner table, but somehow he knew it was not about what Naru and Umino Gurio had been doing in the apartment while her mother served customers in the shop below.

It bothered him, although he did not know why, it bothered him that she wasted so much of her time in the company of one such as Umino Gurio, and it bothered him that it was Umino to whom she awarded a private audience, and that it was for Umino's privilege that she drew the curtains across her bedroom window.

Yet all he could do was watch from the roof of his filthy office block as he was slowly eaten away by a cancer he had no name for, and the knowledge that it was Umino Gurio, and not he, who was the focus of Naru's attentions. The desire to know exactly what it was that occupied so much of their time was eroding what remained of his sanity into dust, and if they would not give up their secrets, then he would have to discover them for himself.

_Watching me, wanting me_

_I can feel you pull me down_

_Saving me, raping me_

_Watching me_

Whilst Naru took Umino upstairs, he would usually make his way towards the building with the rusting iron staircase and the green neon sign, and would sit amongst rotting pigeon excrement and greasy sheets of old newspaper, watching the apartment above the jewellery store, trying to interpret the slight movements behind the drawn curtains as they billowed and flapped in the open window.

Yet, for once he left the rooftop well alone, and watched the apartment building Naru shared with her mother from across the street, his eyes not on her bedroom, but on the outer door leading to the uppermost floor. He knew that was their only means of exit, for the long hours he had spent watching had made him an expert on the architecture of the building; every doorway, every window, every gutter, every pipe, he knew by heart. He could demolish the whole apartment block and rebuild it twice over in his sleep if he so wished, but he kept the knowledge he had acquired in his head, for it was his trump card, and if his long years of service to the Dark Kingdom had taught him anything, it was that it was always good to keep a spare hand close to his chest. Unfortunately, that was a lesson he seemed to have learnt too late.

He had no idea how long it would be before the two of them emerged, but he was a patient man with all the time in the world, and he was prepared to wait as long as it took. For over an hour he had been standing in the same spot, propping himself against a conveniently placed lamppost for support as he sipped sporadically at a cup of coffee he had bought from a street vendor. He grimaced as he lifted the polystyrene cup to his lips; the beverage was obviously of a cheap brand and left a gritty taste in his mouth, yet he was grateful of the warmth the hot liquid lent to his numb fingers.

Every so often, people would stare at him, passing whispered judgements to their companions on his dishevelled appearance and the foul stench that clung to his being like a thick, noxious cloud, but more often than not they would ignore him, dismissing him as just another poor soul who had fallen on hard times, another victim of the city's fluctuating economy and volatile stock market. He cared little for what they thought, for they were nothing, nobodies. A bit like him. Nevertheless he ignored them, and instead turned his concentration towards the door sandwiched in between the small jewellery store and its neighbour instead.

It would be so easy to overlook the tiny, seemingly insignificant doorway, he realised, so easy to let his quarry slip past his nose undetected, but they would be naïve to underestimate him. He allowed himself a slight, knowing smile; they had been clever so far, but whatever else he may be he was no fool. He had watched Naru long enough, long before she had found out what he really was, long before she had even the slightest inkling that perhaps he was not all he pretended to be, and her world had never been the same again.

Then, it had been nothing more than a game to him, to stalk her as she slept and watch her as she tossed and turned beneath her bed sheets, her forehead damp with sweat as she fought against some undefined nightmare. Then, he had believed he had held the upper hand, but he had not known she had been playing a game of her own, and had woven her own fantasies beneath the naïve front she paraded so expertly before her family and friends. She played the part well, the innocent young schoolgirl caught in the throes of her first crush, and she had found in him the perfect idol onto which to project her lusts, the distant stranger whom she could sigh and dream over as she lay on her white counterpane and stared at her ceiling, but who was always just out of her reach, and so could never become too close for comfort.

But her fabricated delusions had spun out of control, for she had not known who she was playing against, and by the time they had both realised what was happening the curtain had been drawn on their strange little farce, and the game was over. Yet once more they found themselves acting out the same tragedy, and once more the stakes had been raised to the highest level, but he was not playing anymore, and this time, he knew exactly what he wanted. It was all or nothing, and this time, he would not take no for an answer.

When the door finally opened, Umino Gurio was the first to step out onto the street, adjusting his glasses and straightening his shirt collar as he shifted his schoolbag awkwardly from hand to hand. Naru followed soon afterwards, her eyes darting about the street as if she were looking for something. Or someone. The man felt a sharp chill creep its way along his spine as her gaze swept past him; for a moment he was certain her attention had lingered on the exact spot in which he was standing, and he slid further into the shadows.

When she wished Umino good-bye her voice sounded slightly breathless, as if she had been running, and when he looked closer he noticed that her face seemed a little flushed, her normally pale cheeks rosy with colour. She clutched at his hand, telling him that she would call him later, and that she would see him tomorrow. He said nothing in response, merely grinning sheepishly and staring at the pavement through his thick glasses. And then, she kissed him on the lips, the movement so quick that it would have been unnoticeable to anyone but the most attentive of passer-bys.

He saw it all from his vantage point across the street, and glared at the couple from behind the parked cars that obscured him from their vision. For some reason, their brief exchange had angered him, and a strange feeling boiled low in his stomach. His fist curled tightly around the polystyrene cup, splitting the cheap container so that hot coffee spilled onto his hand and burnt his skin. He did not seem to notice.

The next day, Naru did not walk home with Umino Gurio. In fact, she did not walk home at all. Nor did she walk home the next day, or the day after that. She had been spending most of her free time at the hospital, visiting Umino, for he had been the victim of an unfortunate attack. He had always been such a studious boy and often stayed late at the local library, making copious notes from the mountains of textbooks and scientific journals that littered his desk until some official tapped him on the shoulder and told him they were ready to close. But that evening, as he made his way home in the dark, someone had stuck a broken bottle through his stomach. The wound had punctured his liver, and he was being treated in intensive care. He had not seen his attacker.

_Watching me, wanting me_

_I can feel you pull me down_

In Umino's absence, Naru resumed walking home with Tsukino Usagi, but Tsukino Usagi now had other friends, and better things to do than baby-sit Osaka Naru, and so an increasing amount of her time was spent in the company of others. Now, it was becoming more common for Naru to walk home alone, and that, although she was not aware of it at the time, was to be the ultimate cause of her downfall.

He grew bolder as the weeks wore on, following her more closely and for longer periods, sometimes nothing more than a single step behind, mirroring her every footfall, matching her stride for stride, shadowing her with perfect synchronisation. It gave him a secret thrill, to know that he was so close to her without her knowledge, to know that all he had to do was reach out and touch her, and she would be his. Before long he had memorised her every movement, and when he was alone, in whatever squalid back alley he made his bed in that night, he would let his mind sink into ecstasy as he played her daily journey home over and over in his head; the gentle sway of her hips, the slight swish of her skirt against the soft, pale flesh of her legs, the way her hair bobbed and dipped from side to side with every single footstep.

Sometimes, he would imagine lifting his hand to her head and running his fingers through her tangle of red curls, the look of surprise on her face when she turned round and finally saw him in the flesh, when she knew his presence was more than just a passing dream, or a vague shadow at the corner of her eye. Other times, his fantasy seemed so real that when he awoke the following morning, his head heavy with the after effects of cheap liquor, he was surprised to find that she was not there, lying beside him, her lids closed and her face a picture of contentment as her chest rose and fell with the rhythm of his heart. 

But there were other times also, when he hated the way his thoughts always turned to her, and when he hated Osaka Naru and all she had done to him, and it was in those times that he reached his lowest ebb, for how could she want him now, knowing that he was not what he once was, and knowing that he was not the man he had once pretended to be, the man she had built her fantasies around? Yet the more the hatred and repulsion festered inside him the more he wanted her, so that eventually want became need, and need became lust. And he knew that if she would not have him, she would have no-one.

Yet in reality he was not nearly so forthright, and every time he reached forward to touch her skin, or clutch at her clothing or hair, his courage left him and he faltered, melting into the nearest shadow every time she looked his way. But he was getting closer, and once, when she turned, her head swivelling a vicious ninety degrees and a small gasp escaping her lips, he felt the slightest whisper of her hair on his fingertips.

And so their game of cat-and-mouse would continue until she reached the familiar building that housed the OSA*P jewellery store and pulled out the cluster of keys that allowed her entry to the apartment upstairs, and denied his. Here, his journey ended and he would leave her, but she was never alone for long, for his secret refuge on top of the building with the iron staircase and the neon sign meant he was never too far away. There, he could watch her without the distractions of the busy streets and Umino Gurio buzzing in his head.

But he was beginning to tire of the same routine, and began to yearn for something more, something more than the memory of her curves in his head, or the faintest whisper of her perfume in the night air, or the slightest murmur of her name on his lips. He wanted more than she was giving him, more than just the promise of better things to come, more than a string of lies and false hopes. He wanted _her_.

_Fearing you, loving you_

_I won't let you pull me down_

And so here he was, one hundred and twenty-one days after first seeing Osaka Naru on the streets of Tokyo. It had been easier than he thought it would be, much easier. But there had to be a catch somewhere, didn't there? Because things were never this easy. Yet here he was, standing right in front of Naru's door, the door that led upstairs to her apartment, the very door that only a few weeks before, he had seen Naru kissing Umino Gurio in front of whilst he watched them from across the street. But Naru would not be kissing Umino Gurio any longer. In fact, he thought with a devilish grin, if the rumours of her schoolyard friends were anything to go by, Umino Gurio wouldn't be kissing anyone anymore.

From close up, the door did not look that impressive, nothing more than a flimsy piece of wood coated in a skin of peeling white paint, and it would have been an insufficient and easily negotiable barrier if not for the sturdy lock that held it in place. But a lock was only effective if it was used properly, and once again Naru had been careless. He made a note to tell her to make sure she closed the outer door properly next time, otherwise any old person could get in.

Any old person. Did that include him? Was he just 'any old person'? Of course not, he thought with a knowing smile; he was the exception to the rule, and he had privileges above those of any old person. He was special. 

His palm was sweaty with anticipation as he pressed it to the door, and it left a greasy print on the wood, like a territorial mark. He had never seen this part of her world, and he could not help but feel a tingle of excitement as he stepped over the threshold, despite the somewhat dingy interior and the musty smell in the air. The stairway was darker than he expected, and was lit only by a single bulb suspended on a skinny length of cord that flickered and swung with the sudden gust of air from outside. Naru was already way ahead of him, and he could hear the rattle of her keys as she struggled with the upstairs lock.

The staircase was no obstacle to him, not now that he was this close, and he negotiated it with ease, closing the distance between himself and Naru within seconds. She seemed to be having some difficulty with her key, and once or twice she swore in frustration as she jiggled it fiercely in the lock. With a sigh of sheer irritation, she threw her school satchel to the floor, not even bending to pick up the flurry of books and papers that spilled out from the open flap as she stabbed at the unyielding lock with her bundle of keys, trying first one and then another, muttering under her breath after each failure.

He watched her with fascination, not least because she did not yet seem to be aware of his presence, and was ignorant of the fact that she was not alone in the poky stairwell. It made little difference to his plan; the element of surprise was on his side, and that suited him fine. Again, he felt the same thrill he had upon entering the apartment building, he was standing right behind her and she didn't even know it.

The bare light bulb gave her red curls a faint copper glow, so that he was aware of the movement of every single strand as his breath shifted the air around them, and he remembered the time when he had been close enough to feel the gentlest caress of her hair on his fingertips as he had stalked her on the city streets. But this time he was even closer, and as he reached forward he caught the faintest scent of her perfume, and imagined he could taste it on his lips. He was almost there…

Suddenly, Naru turned around, and he froze. She gasped, dropping her keys to the floor with a heavy clunk, her hands flying to her mouth and her eyes growing large with shock. For a minute, she stared at him, confused by his dishevelled and filthy appearance, his lank, greasy hair, the ten-day stubble on his chin, the watery smile on his face, and in that minute she did not recognise him at all, and did not understand why such a person would be standing at the top of her staircase. And then, it dawned on her, and her green eyes grew even wider, and her jaw even slacker.

   "Sanjuoin-sama?" she gaped at him, her tiny, perfect mouth opening and closing like a fish in a tank. But he was not Sanjuoin-sama, she remembered then, he was someone else, and there was no way he could be there…

   "Nephrite-sama?" she squeaked, recalling the name he had told her all that time ago, "b-but I thought, I – I thought…"

   "I know, Naru-chan," he told her, lifting his hand to catch the tears pooling at the corners of her eyes, "but it's okay now, you don't have to worry. I've come back to you."

   She looked at him properly then, her eyes trailing over his face and locking with his for the briefest of seconds, before dropping to the floor. "I – I don't know what to say…" she whispered.

   "You don't have to say anything at all," he replied, "not if you don't want to…"

He smiled at her again, tiny creases forming at the corners of his eyes. She watched him nervously as he placed his hand on her cheek, wiping away her tears with a single sweep of his thumb, leaving no more than the faintest smudge of soiled fingerprint on her skin. But that, it seemed, was enough for Naru, and she recoiled form him almost instantly, her hand flying to her cheek as if she had been struck.

   "Naru-chan? What's the matter?" he asked her, the tone of his voice echoing her earlier expression.

She didn't answer him, and merely stared at him with that same wide-eyed expression, one hand clutching her face and the other pressed against the wall behind her; although this time, her eyes were wide not with surprise, but with fear, and he knew full well what the matter was. She didn't want him. After all this, after all he had done for her, all he had given up for her; she didn't want him.

   "Naru-chan," he said, a dangerous, testing note in his voice, "what do you think you're playing at?"

   "We – we can't do this," she stammered, looking as though she was trying to press herself into the wall at her back, "it – it isn't right. You shouldn't even be here!"

   "You told me you loved me!" he shouted, and she flinched at the sound of his raised voice.

   "That was over two years ago, I was only fourteen!" she looked at him pleadingly, willing him to leave, "I've moved on now."

He said nothing, still reeling from the shock of her words. Moved on? Moved on?! How could she have moved on?! Months of planning, and it had come to this! How many hours, how many days, how many _weeks_ had he spent planning this moment? And for what? For her to turn around and tell him she didn't want anything to do with him? She had _used_ him, had toyed with his feelings and made him look like an idiot.

   _Serves you right,_ a nasty little voice sneered at the back of his mind, and he felt his heart sink with despair, knowing full well who it was.   

   "N-Nephrite-sama?" Naru was looking at him as if she was afraid any sudden movement would send him over the edge, "are – are you okay?"

   "What do you think?" he said darkly.

   "This - this isn't my fault, you know," she was trying to sound assertive, but the tremble in her voice gave away her true feelings, "I didn't ask you to come here. I – I was doing fine by myself. Besides," she added, "Umino and I…"

Umino again. Nephrite felt his jaw tighten.

   "You understand, don't you Nephrite-sama?" she continued in that same whiny, stammering voice.

She stared at him expectantly, her breathing somewhat shallow and both fists now clenching and unclenching against the wall behind her. He heard her swallow tentatively in the still air, very much aware that his prolonged silence was unnerving her, but still he said nothing. What was he supposed to say, anyway? 

   'Never mind, Naru-chan, I hope you and Umino are very happy together.' 

Not likely.

   "I – I have to go now," she said timidly, inching her way along the wall towards the narrow staircase, "m-maybe we could meet up sometime, huh? Have th-that p-parfait together, like we said, you know?" She flashed him a nervous smile.

It was an empty offer, and he knew it, one last attempt to save face, to save him from embarrassing himself any further. She didn't love him, she felt sorry for him, and if there was one thing he needed less, it was her pity.

   _Every time you are reborn…_

   "Naru-chan, wait!" he called, grabbing hold of her wrist in one final, desperate attempt.

She stopped her descent, turning first to look at him, and then the wrist imprisoned by his grasp. 

   "Don't go."

   "Nephrite-sama, I – I have to. I told you, w-we can't do this!" she said, her eyes alert with fear as she tried to pull herself free, "let me go! Please, let go of me!"

   "You know I can't do that, Naru-chan," he said quietly, tightening his hold on her skinny, little wrist.

   "Ow! Nephrite-sama, stop it! Let go!" her whole face screwed up with pain as she struggled even harder.

He couldn't help but feel some satisfaction at watching her squirm, hearing her beg and plead as he had only moments before. But the top of a flight of concrete stairs was not the best place for their little struggle, and Naru was in a precarious position. As she tried to wriggle free, twisting her arm this way and that, she was unaware of the way her feet were slipping and sliding on the stair below her.

   "Naru-chan, stop!" Nephrite watched her with alarm, "you'll fall!"

But Naru was not listening, and continued her struggle even more violently than before, using her other hand to batter his arm in the hope that it would force him to release her.

   "Stop struggling!" he called again.

   "Then let me go!" she said. She was now crying, tears flowing freely down her cheeks as she tugged and pulled at her arm.

   "If you stop struggling I can let you go," he said, trying to bargain with her.

But Naru was having none of it, and it seemed that the more he tried to help her, the more she lashed out at him. Once or twice, he tried to grab her free arm to stop her from fighting back, but his reflexes were not what they once were, another effect of his increasing reliance on drink, and so she evaded him easily.

   _Just let her go,_ the nasty little voice cajoled at the back of his mind, _she said it herself, she doesn't want you. Just let her fall. Teach her a lesson…_

It was so tempting to listen to her, to let himself give in the way he had so many times before. After all, Metallia knew him better than anyone else, she had told him so before, all those nights when Naru had rejected him in favour of Umino Gurio or some other worthless non-entity. It couldn't hurt, could it? Besides, it was more than she deserved…

Naru kicked him hard, catching him somewhere between his shin and his ankle and he gasped sharply, more from the shock that she had actually struck him than from anything else, and for the briefest second he loosened his grip on her wrist. Sensing his weakness, she yanked her arm away fiercely, twisting it out of his grasp. She had outsmarted him, here, after he had planned it out so well, and that seemed to hurt him more than the blow to his leg. 

   _See, what did I tell you? She doesn't care about you, your feelings…_

But Naru's little triumph was short-lived, and he couldn't help but feel the tiniest spurt of victory of his own when she realised she wasn't able to keep her balance on the narrow step and defend her new found freedom. Her eyes grew even wider than before, and for the shortest moment it looked as though she would cry out for his help. But that would never happen, for if there was one thing Naru feared even more than falling to her doom it was the prospect of finding herself in the arms of the man she had only minutes before shunned.

She screamed once, and only once, a piercing sound that filled the air and would reverberate in Nephrite's ears for years to come. Her whole body arched backwards as she teetered on her pretty, leather school shoes and her arms flailed wildly in the air, her hands clutching at a lifeline she knew did not exist. After that one scream there were no more, and Nephrite was not to know whether or not her last thoughts had been of him. 

There was no graceful fall, no elegant acrobatic display, no slow motion sequence as she fell, and as he lunged forwards, his hand outstretched as he tried to grab her hand, a piece of her clothing, anything, she was already halfway down her descent. Her bones crunched as they cracked on each step in sequence, the sharp edges playing her ribs like a macabre xylophone, but there was no echo in the tiny stairwell, and so when she finally came to rest, her dead eyes staring resignedly at the Artex-pocked ceiling, she lay there in silence.

In the long minutes following the fall, he could not move, and instead stood staring at the lifeless bundle at the foot of the staircase, the tangled limbs twisted into impossible angles, the trickle of blood working its way from the corner of her mouth and down her chin. Outside, her heard a car go past the building, the voices of eager shoppers as they stopped to consider the display in the window of the OSA*P boutique next door, normal, everyday city noises. Yet inside, it was eerily quiet, and he knew the outside world was oblivious as to what had happened behind the wooden door with the peeling paintwork.

His throat felt dry, and his head was aching from the schizophrenic flickering of the overhead light, but he had expected more, somehow, had expected the end to be…different. In what way, he did not know, for the experience was new to him; but he felt nothing, no sorrow, no regret, not even remorse. Perhaps, he thought, this was what it was always like, and he had been wrong all along.

   _She got what she deserved,_ Metallia cackled gleefully in his ear, as vicious and malevolent as ever, _you should be thankful._          

But he didn't feel thankful, he didn't feel anything. Above his head, the bulb flickered some more, lighting Naru's still form in a pallet of grey shadow. It was strange, but she looked almost beautiful. Then again, didn't everything look beautiful in the shadows? That was, after all, the lesson he had learnt. 

There was no silencing Metallia now, not anymore, he simply didn't know how. He was back to square one, although something told him that now it would be worse than before, and not just because Naru was…

**Author's Notes:** So, what did you think? Like it? Loathe it? Leave any comments you may have, but remember pointless flames will be mocked mercilessly. I think I should add that the line Metallia repeats in the first half of the fic is from the manga. Originally, Beryl uses it when she's talking to Kunzite, but I figured she probably said something similar to all the Shittennou. Besides, I think it is a perfect way of describing their predicament. If you don't agree, I call the 'artistic license' card :P


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